Hey, Daron here. It’s been a long time since we did a liner notes post, what with me being on the road all summer and ctan doing her writing gigs. But I’ve been cherry picking stuff to share with you guys for all that time!
The first thing is I know I write a lot about touring but the “show must go on” mentality is something I don’t know if I get across. Some people would be stressed out by it. I find it calming to know there’s a singular goal for each day on the road and that everyone is pulling together behind that one thing. In my eyes it’s a beautiful thing.
Live music, and any kind of performance really, is an ephemeral art. You have to live in the moment but so many things have to happen to create that moment. Things in the past and things in the present.
Billy Idol’s on tour right now and he posted this photo (below) the other night of drum tech Trevor Matthias lying on the drum riser having to physically hold a drum pedal together during at 8-minute long rendition of “Mony, Mony,” which is the massive show-closing number he does at the end of his encore (according to his set lists–gotta love Setlist.com).
It can be dangerous out there, too. Dave Grohl fell off a stage and broke his fucking leg while on tour this summer. He apparently got a cast put on and had a THRONE built for himself to he could keep performing since he couldn’t stand up any longer.
His mishap prompted Spin to post this list of 15 Worst Stage Falls of 2015. Harry Styles had a couple of epic ones, and Madonna had one during a performance at an awards ceremony.
You just have to keep going unless you can’t.
Speaking of Dave Grohl, did you see that Ian MacKaye of seminal DC punk band Minor Threat found a letter that a 14-year-old Grohl had written him? Grohl wrote to ask if Mackaye had “some numbers of people to get in touch with” and included his phone number and business hours: 3pm to 10pm.
We start young, man. We start young when we know what we want to do.
The journey can have a lot of twists and turns, too. I was struck by this story of a punk band from LA called The Plugz. Their weirdest, biggest brush with fame came when they ended up acting as Bob Dylan’s backing band for a 1993 appearance on the David Letterman show. Vulture.com has the article.
Dylan had just finished a really weird run in his own career, doing these evangelical christian albums that alienated most of his fans, and his sales were in the toilet.
“Still, Dylan was Dylan, one of the most famous musicians alive, and his booking on Late Night was a coup. Studio 6A had hosted some memorable acts, like R.E.M.’s network debut, but no one of Dylan’s status had yet performed on the show,” writes Matthew Giles. “His backing musicians that night didn’t include any members of his old running buddies the Band, or high-profile hired hands like ex–Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor or Dire Straits’ front man Mark Knopfler, who’d both worked with him during that period. Instead, standing behind Dylan, all dressed in ratty black suits, were three unknown 20-somethings — and they were killing it.”
Dylan didn’t even tell them which song(s) they were going to do. They had hurriedly rehearsed 50 different ones the day before, but he didn’t give a clue what they’d do. Dylan borrowed the guitar he was playing (a Fender Stratocaster, you’ll note) from one of the Rolling Stones.
So these punks from L.A., they kicked the doors off that set, revitalized Dylan’s career… and never played with him again. I’d say “unbelievable” except it’s all too believable, you know?
There’s a part of Keith Richards’ autobiography where he talks about touring the U.S. in the sixties and basically being treated like criminals wherever they went. Not by the venues or the fans, of course, but by the police all across the country, because to play rock and roll and grow your hair long equated to You Were A Criminal in the minds of the police.
By the 1980s there was still some of that attitude (like the time I got picked up for vagrancy) but it had faded a lot. Then again, as Keith Richards says, they were carrying a ton of drugs, so technically they WERE criminals. But mostly it was that the mere existence of a rock star was to buck the moral status quo.
I’m sure bucking the moral status quo was a huge part of the appeal for me, anyway.
But then there are guys who I guess take it too far. This headline caught my eye: Bounty hunter kills country singer Randy Howard in Tennessee gun fight. Howard was a so-called “Outlaw country” singer–i.e. one of those guys who preferred a more rustic and rough style compared to the over-produced, hyper-polished stuff (that I hate). Apparently he was trying to buck his fourth drunk driving conviction and refused to go to court, and then when a bounty hunter showed up, opened fire and was shot in return.
All I can say to that is… some people live a very different reality from mine.
Which leads me to a really intriguing interview with Adam Lambert on the subject of fame and being famous. This wasn’t what I expected from him:
Fame. “It’s not a normal existence,” he says. “I’ve tried really hard to always be the same guy I always was, that’s why I have the same friends, but you gotta adapt. You gotta roll with the punches on that one. It puts your relationships into a different context.”
Uh huh.
Here’s another one that’s lighter from Billboard. To quote: “Lambert is open about being ‘boy crazy’ but ultimately feeling lonely. ‘I don’t know what I want in relationships, which is probably the reason I’m pouring my energy into my work. I’m dating my album right now,’ he cracks. ‘It’s going well. We have an open relationship.'”
It’s tough in the public eye. There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle once it’s out, either.
That’s true of the coming out genie, too. Adam Lambert will be introduced and written about for decades to come as “openly gay Adam Lambert.” (The only reason you don’t hear David Bowie still introduced as “bisexual musician David Bowie” is because he’s so thoroughly refuted the label in more recent decades.)
I was a little surprised, perhaps to see this video against homophobia and for gay marriage by none other than former punk icon Henry Rollins.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, though. Rollins has always been about fighting “the man” and the manniest man in this country out there right now is the right-wing G.O.P. It still spins my head a little that we’ve come this far, though, that gay issues, instead of being something politicians couldn’t even talk about, are now central issues for both right wingers (a main thing they fight against) and liberals. Although I think it’s sad in a way that actually the left wing really didn’t embrace us until the right wing became so vocal about us that they HAD to address it. I still get a thrill every time Obama says “gay Americans” though just like he addresses every other constituency.
Okay, enough politics, enough ruminations on public life, music, and my parade of first wave punks who made good (jeez, there are a lot of them in this note, too: Billy Idol, Ian MacKaye, Henry Rollins, the Plugz…). I should finish up with just some cool musical things I’ve found.
There’s a group in England called Perhaps Contraption who are kind of a steampunkish musical performance troupe who do video and performance art with a kind of steampunkish bent. I spent a lot of time watching all their videos:
This one below is best watched on their website on a computer (not phone or tablet) because it has interactive parts where you can pick which musician you’re following around:
http://perhapscontraption.co.uk/music/perambulations/
Finally guitarist Alex Chadwick plays the history of rock and roll in 100 riffs in one take. Because if you haven’t seen it yet, you should:
(There’s that Fender Strat again…)
There’s a lot of cool music out there, and a lot of great musicians making it. Enjoy them–life wouldn’t be the same without us.
* * * *
Okay, actually, I’m not done, I have some site reminders I’m supposed to pass on.
FANWORKS AW YEAH
First, if you missed the post about various fanworks initiatives that are coming up, check it out: https://daron.ceciliatan.com/archives/4465/
CHAT?
Second, a couple of people have asked about whether there might be a designated chat hour or two each week so fans who want to get in the chat room together informally, can? Suggested times so far: Tuesday evenings 8pm eastern, Thursdays 8pm, Saturdays 5pm. Thoughts?
VOTE!
Third, remember you can vote once a week on Top Web Fiction to keep DGC in the top ranks (click here).
NEAT REVIEWS!
Fourth, some neat reviews *not* on Amazon have appeared recently. One that just appeared, from Blow Pop’s Book Reviews kinda made us laugh here: “If you like reading books about gay men in the music industry, you’ll probably like this book. I’m ambivalent both on the topic of the music industry and gay men but can definitely enjoy one or both of them.” I really appreciate reviewers telling it like it is, you know?
A much more lyrical one appeared at The Novel Approach, which calls DGC “a grand feat of altogether consummate storytelling.” And: “this is, simply put, literary fiction at its finest: character driven and filled with all the flaws and challenges and perfect imperfections of the human condition, set against the backdrop of Daron’s near-obsessive need to play his guitars.”
Yeah, well.
NEXT EBOOK COMES OUT NOVEMBER 10th
Last thing: book 8 of the ebook volumes is now available to be pre-ordered! The price for pre-order is $2.99 and then once released, it’ll go up! So if you’re planning to get it, put in a preorder at any of these sites:
Amazon
Smashwords
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
(Apple iTunes is coming…waiting for it to appear there)
The “cover reveal” of the book 8 cover will be on October 15th. If you have a blog and want to be part of it or part of the reviews and publicity blitz in November, sign up at Rock Star PR (yes that’s the actual name of the publicity folks ctan hired): http://rockstarlit.com/content/darons-guitar-chronicles-volume-8/
PAPERBACKS COMING TOO
Also, ctan finally got a breather from her other writing work and finished up the production on all the individual paperbacks that have been waiting to be done since the last Kickstarter. Cool, eh? The full wraparound covers on the paper books look like this:
That’s it for now. See you guys around.
-d
22 Comments
Totally not about the liner notes (sorry) but I just wanted to say… I was listening to my very random playlist yesterday and “Innuendo” by Queen came on, and just listening to it made me think of Daron and Ziggy. And then it got to the classical guitar solo and I was really thinking of Daron and just going YEAH.
It’s been a while since I asked for people’s songs that remind them of the boys. I should start a post. 🙂
Isn’t “Innuendo” an Italian euphemism for gay sex?
Love the covers.
And the proof copies arrived today! I have a couple little fixes to make and then I can make them live for purchase. So probably by Tuesday.
Awesome!
Exited to hear this!
That 100 Riffs video was freaking cool.
That guy has some other pretty cool ones, too.
Why would Rollins being against homophobia and for gay marriage surprise? He’s been fairly outspoken about those things for a while. He’s even … reasonably resigned to the gay comic about someone who may or may not be based on him being in a relationship with someone who may or may not be based on Glenn Danzig. (And apparently amused by the fact that the very concept would make Danzig go mental … which it did.)
I’d somehow never heard him talk about it before and didn’t necessarily expect such an impassioned stance about it. That is hilarious about a Rollins/Danzig comic, though, and yes, I can imagine it would freak Danzig totally the fuck out.
I’m with Iain in the ‘why surprised?’ but Rollins was talking about gay rights when he spoke at the university campus I was living on 1996 or 97. Funny enough, it was also the first time I heard someone talk about the concept of being a fanboy/girl. I hadn’t had access to that language before he talked about being one, and it clicked. I was never crazy about him as a musician, but some of his writing definitely shaped how I grew intellectually in high school and college.
The prompts for the monthly challenge will be going up in the next couple of hours. I got distracted by shenanigans.
Like I said, I had just never heard him talk about it before. What I remember from when he first started publishing and stuff was mostly economic equality and socialist stuff, and then I haven’t really paid attention to him since.
Did the prompts ever go up? If yes, where are they posted? Thanks.
They’ve not gone up yet. I ended up having a ridiculous weekend of distractions and then a cross-country flight this morning. The post is drafted, and just needs last tweaks. I’m sorry for the delay.
No problem. I was just wondering if I couldn’t find them for some reason.
I was lucky enough to see Mark Knopfler in concert last week and I confess, I spent at least 10% of the time thinking about you, Daron!
Such a great show – it was a who’s who of stringed instruments. We lost count after a while, but along with the dozen-plus guitars we spotted a double bass (yay!), violins, a bouzouki (sp?), a ukulele, and a cavaquinho!
Nice! The vibrating string holds the universe together and is what makes it alive. We have so many ways to play it…
“The show must go on.”
During a choral performance an alto stopped breathing. I performed CPR and continued singing tenor through the end of the piece as much as I could.
When playing melodic percussion for my college show band in the late sixties my instruments were in two places with no room on the riser to move between them. A helpful person put a small trampoline behind the riser so at the critical moment I leapt onto the trampoline. I was able to hit the chime on my way past to an epic face-plant against a wall.
I played bass clarinet in my college orchestra, which gave me little to do. The alto clarinetist sitting next to me fainted right before her solo. I grabbed her instrument and played a really average version of the solo while others hauled her off stage.
Anybody else got stories? I have more than fifty years of them.
Oh man. Don’t get me started on marching band stories. Or theater stories, for that matter.
Well, OK, one. I used to be part of a stage combat theater troupe in Rhode Island called the Cumberland Company. We did all period pieces with swashbuckling and swords and such. We’re probably the only company who inserted fight scenes into A Christmas Carol and into the Pirates of Penzance. Our big annual production was an outdoor all-day thing with scenes going on at four stages throughout the grounds culminating at a big final scene at a main stage, with the audience wandering from scene to scene as they liked (you couldn’t see all the scenes in a single day but no matter which you saw you were still led to the conclusion). There were some characters required to go from one stage to another in order to be in both scenes. I was coming from one and the rest of my group from another. They all had lines. I didn’t. One day somehow the scene they were in first got behind schedule and there was no sign of them. As the scene I was supposed to enter with them was devolving into bad improv, I made a decision. I stepped out onto the stage and delivered the opening line that was supposed to be our group leader’s line, and proceeded to finish the whole scene giving ALL the lines from the people who were supposed to be in my group as if they all belonged to my character. Scene ended and as we left the stage the rest of the group finally caught up.
Same theater group, not my fight: stage combat is carefully choreographed and practiced so that it can be done at high speed (with swords) so that it looks convincing even though no one is hitting anyone for real. In one of the major climax scenes, a woman on my “tribe” was supposed to fight and defeat one of the bad guys. During the fight there was a stunt where she flipped over him. They’d practiced it hundreds of times but one day during the show she over-rotated and smacked her head on the deck. No way could she finish the fight but it’s a major plot point, right? We dragged her backstage while one of the other people on our tribe played it as if she’d been killed, went “berserker,” and finished the fight in her place. (We later learned that the woman who’d had the bad flip had broken her neck.)
I just want to point out my review was from Sept 23, 2015. But appreciate the mention of my review. I tend to be more on the “I’m gonna tell you how it is rather than what I think you want to hear” type of person.
This post was also from 2015, so I’m not sure why it just hit your radar now. But we appreciate the “tell it like it is” reviews a lot. 🙂 Thank you <3